'Inflation will lead to hunger'
2007-10-26 16:06
Johannesburg - Rocketing food prices would lead to poor families going hungry, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Friday.
"Given that the poorer you are, the higher the proportion of your income goes to food, these increases are bound to lead to poor families going hungry," the union federation's spokesperson Patrick Craven said in a statement.
Quoting a Business Day report he said food inflation at the manufacturing level rose by an annual rate of 16% in September and 15.4% in August. Food prices at the agricultural level were even steeper, accelerating 24.4% compared with 23.8% in August.
"These prices spell disaster for millions of the poor in South Africa," Craven said.
Cosatu called for the government to investigate the cause of the increases.
"Government must check urgently that there is no profiteering at any level, by farmers, wholesalers or retailers," he said.
Craven said there was a global problem of rising food prices, but that could not explain the dramatic increases, nor did it explain why prices were always going up.
Cosatu said farm and food-processing industries' workers were not getting the higher wages after the increment on food sales, and wanted to why.
The overall rate of inflation was 6.7%. Analysts were predicting it would reach seven percent in early 2008, he said.
"Government has agreed to look into this proposal and we urge that this be treated urgently," he said.
Craven said the Reserve Bank had to align itself with the national priorities of bringing down unemployment and poverty.
"No policy or vested interest must be allowed to stand in the way of achieving this goal."
Year-on-year consumer price inflation excluding mortgage rates (CPIX) quickened to 6.7% last month from 6.3% in August, Statistics SA reported on Wednesday.
It said the latest figure was mainly due to annual increases in the price indices for food (3.2 percentage points), housing (0.8), medical care and health expenses (0.5), household operations (0.4), transport (0.4), education (0.4), fuel and power (0.3) and personal care (0.3).
- SAPA